Thursday, April 30, 2015

Constraint therapy, round 4, days 10-15

Allie and Andrew went to play at Allie's BFF Abby's house in the afternoon. The night before, Abby asked if Allie wanted to make cookies. She was kind of excited about it.

They made cookies, played at the park, and had an overall great time.

Allie has been doing a great job with her independent finger movements. I'm happy to announce that she can pinch now!

Day 11

Allie got a surprise invite to a local puppet show with a friend of ours and her two kids. Allie went by herself and was proud of her independence. She did get a little scared of the puppets but had a good time with her friends.

Allie also had a lot of KKI homework this weekend.

She had to draw on a chalkboard...

Writing "Allie" with Righty

She's also pointing with just her index finger. Part of her homework was to push a button with just her pointer 5 times. She got really into it and typed the following:

"I LO
VE DADDY ALLISON MOMMY ANDREW
FELIX WOLF"

The last two names are two of her friends from school.

Day 12

Monday was a normal KKI day. Her favorite activity is the bike. She's getting pretty good at steering!

On the way home, however, it was starting to look like it wasn't going to be a normal evening in Baltimore. There were police lining the streets and lots of barricades set up. I didn't see any protesters but it looked like the city was bracing for it.

We let Allie watch some of the news with us that night. The riot was confusing and she wondered why people were so upset. We talked a little about it. She said "But people are nice. Why are they acting like that?" I liked that she could look at someone setting fire to a building and still think he's nice, just misguided. I'm not sure I'm so generous.

Day 13
Jonathan, Allie, and Andrew stayed home on Tuesday and had a fun day filled with outdoor activities. Andrew wasn't feeling well, though, so he mostly just sat in his stroller and enjoyed the fresh air.

Day 14
We decided to go to KKI yesterday. It was weird to see the National Guard line the inner harbor with their huge guns and military jeeps. There wasn't much destruction nearby; just some tipped over chain link fences.

Andrew stayed home from school so he accompanied us to KKI and liked watching his sister bike by.

Last night, we tried to take the kinesio tape off Allie's right arm (you can see it in the picture above where she's coloring). She flipped out. She was screaming and crying. Flailing and trying to hit us with her cast. She did not want it off. We eventually held her still and cut off the part of the tape around her thumb, which was soggy and crusted with food.

As soon as Jonathan cut the tape off, she was fine. She said "You didn't cut off my thumb!" Apparently when we said "we need to cut it off", she thought we were referring to her thumb. I explained that we'd never cut off her thumb. She said "Yeah, I have bones in there!"

Day 15
While guards and police still line the Baltimore streets, things seem calmer. I'm sitting in the hallway at KKI now and she just ran out to show me her freshly painted nails. She picked the nail polish as a prize for winning a game of chutes and ladders. She really loves it here.